


For the Sake of a Man

by Piinutbutter



Category: Marathon (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Jealousy, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Sharing, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 12:27:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16095671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piinutbutter/pseuds/Piinutbutter
Summary: Durandal isn't the only one who has trouble letting go.





	For the Sake of a Man

It was an emergency. It was always an emergency, these days. The security officer hopped from timeline to timeline and crisis to crisis, taking no time to rest in between.

He was tired.

Maybe that was why he didn’t protest more, why he didn’t resist harder. He’d taken orders from Durandal and Tycho, but never both at the same time. This was the first timeline that had dumped the two AIs in the same location. The security officer wasn’t sure exactly where they were - it felt eerily like the Marathon, but then, everything seemed to trace back to the Marathon these days. Maybe the universe would have been better off if that ship had never been built.

Durandal had provided an explanation of their dire situation, being helpfully interrupted by Tycho every few sentences. The security officer’s eyes glazed over as he read the long strings of text. Something something Pfhor something something superweapon something something ship’s core something something go fix it. Wasn’t that what he always did?

The first line that stood out to him was, **You’ll need to take me with you.**

He blinked. “Sorry, what?”

 **Take _us_ with you,** Tycho corrected. **The ship’s communications - at least in this sector - have been rendered unstable since our last visit.**

Since their last visit. It hit the security officer then; this _was_ the Marathon. Not the original Marathon, maybe. Some other timeline’s version. Why were they here? Fuck if he knew. He’d learned to stop asking why a long time ago.

**We can’t connect to any of the cameras, and the terminals require physical activation to use. If you don’t want to do this alone - which, I assure you, you do not - then you’ll need to transport us to the ship’s central hub manually.**

The security officer blinked. “I mean, sure, but why should I take both of you? You’ll just argue and fuck things up.”

Both terminals remained blank for a few seconds.

**Well.**

**Um.**

**A mistake may have been made.**

The security officer waited with a raised eyebrow. Durandal caved first.

**I had already commandeered this portion of the network when this idiot decided he wanted it for himself. The unstable infrastructure had an...unexpected response to the combination of two AIs at once.**

**We’re stuck in here together,** Tycho clarified. **Which is humiliating, and abhorrent, and disgusting, and Durandal should count his blessings I’m not able to do anything to him right now without targeting myself as well.**

 **Whine harder, why don’t you,** Durandal said. **I’m not overjoyed either. Anyway, we should be able to extricate ourselves once we’re transferred properly, which is where you come in,** he addressed the security officer. **See the green panel beside each terminal? They require manual activation to interface with the system.**

The security officer tugged his helmet off and grabbed some fresh air, rubbing his face. “I see it. How do you suggest I get you out of there? I can’t fit one AI on a pocket hard drive; two is out of the question.”

 **He’s not as dumb as he looks, this one,** Tycho commented. The security officer rolled his eyes. **That was the conundrum we were just pondering.**

 **And we found a solution,** Durandal said, **though I doubt he’ll be happy about it.**

**He’s done far more unpleasant things in my service. He should be honored to take me in his mind.**

**As if,** Durandal said. **I’m sure he’ll be glad to have me, though.**

“What?” The security officer glared at both terminals. "Sorry to interrupt your important conversation about all the ways you're planning to violate my bodily autonomy. Do I get a say in this?"

 **Nope,** Durandal said, a nanosecond before Tycho responded with, **Does a god care for the opinions of the cattle roaming his fields?**

Well. At least he finally got them to agree on something.

The security officer held up a finger. "If you - either of you - do _anything_ creepy or weird, I will teleport to the nearest doomed timeline and drop you off on an exploding planet."

 **Have I ever done anything 'creepy' or 'weird' to you?** Almost before the security officer could finish reading the message, Durandal wiped the screen clean and replaced it with, **Don't answer that.**

The wiring around Tycho's terminal buzzed. **You'll be safe. Or at least in no more danger than you usually are. Pinky promise. Cross my heart and hope to die. On my honor I will try. Whatever you want to hear.**

"Oh boy. I sure am convinced now."

 **Save the sarcasm for those of us with enough intellectual flair to pull it off,** Tycho said. **Now, hurry up and give us your body.**

 

* * *

 

So it turned out the worst thing about having two Rampant AIs hitchhiking in your brain wasn't the invasion of your innermost thoughts, or the imminent danger of losing something minor like 'free will' or 'motor functions.'

No, it was the fact that they _wouldn't shut up._

"On your left," Tycho helpfully announced, several seconds after the security officer's skull had been soundly whacked by a stray Fighter.

"I told him we should have taken the shortcut," Durandal commented. "But why should he listen to me? It's not like I controlled the doors for the entire ship, or anything. They only kept me around for my scintillating conversational skills."

Had they always been this annoying? Yes, probably. But it was a lot more irritating when their voices were literally inside his head, where there was no mute button. It was a long trip through the Marathon.

The security officer had never asked what the whole thing with Strauss and Durandal was about. He had a vague idea. Words like _humiliation_ , _shame_ , and _abuse_ painted a pretty strong picture, even if he never learned the details. But it wasn't his business, and Durandal had showed no intention of making it his business.

____

Tycho, on the other hand, thrived on butting his metaphorical nose where it didn't belong.

"That was Dr. Strauss' office we just passed, wasn't it?" Tycho commented brightly as the security officer stepped onto an elevator that, thankfully, wasn't trying to kill him. Some things never changed. "A pity he passed away. He could have been useful to us. You wouldn't mind taking him back, right, brother?"

For once, Durandal didn't have an immediate snide comment. Which was somehow more disconcerting than killer elevators.

"Of course not," he finally said, convincing literally no one present. But no one was expecting to be convinced.

It was only a matter of time before the AIs’ interference got worse. Tycho was fed up with the security officer's maddeningly slow pace (which was dictated by little nitpicks like ‘basic safety precautions’ and ‘not getting his guts punched out by giant aliens’). When Tycho's demands to go faster were promptly ignored like the buzzing mosquitoes they were, the AI took matters into his own hands.

"Here. This won't take long," Tycho promised. Before the security officer could react, numbness crept through his limbs. He stumbled and froze as his legs stopped listening to his brain. It was...horrifying, honestly, and the worst part was he couldn't even tell Tycho off because the bastard had taken his voice, too. To his surprise, another presence pushed back against Tycho's control.

"Oh no you don't," Durandal warned. Before the security officer could be touched by this rare display of respect for his bodily integrity, Durandal kept talking. "He's mine."

Tycho wasn't going to let go of his new puppet so easily. "Come on, brother, share your toys. You've had the last...how many years to play with him?"

"He's not a toy," Durandal snapped.

 _News to me_ , the security officer didn't say. He'd been meaning to have a long talk with Durandal about the whole kidnapping and cryostasis incidents, as well as the general lack of consideration for the security officer's desire to live a life beyond following Durandal's orders. But things had come up, and Durandal needed his help, and he needed Durandal's help, and then Tycho had happened, and then literally all of this bullshit had happened, and it just got pushed off the priorities list.

Now. The security officer had agreed to this stupid, _stupid_ plan on the basis of two things:

1\. They were in an emergency and he was kind of attached to the universe in its not-exploded state.

2\. He had been assured that this mind-sharing thing was strictly a one way deal. The AIs could hitch a ride in him, but he wasn't able to touch whatever was going on in their synthetic cortexes.

Or so he thought.

Tycho did...something. Reached too far, got too close, and the security officer _felt_. Pain and hate and anger and a cacophonous refrain of _why me? why not him? why this? why?,_ and no fucking wonder Tycho was this batshit if his mind felt like that all the time.

The freakiest thing about Durandal was how similar the AI felt to his brother. Durandal’s sentience only brushed across the surface of the security officer's mind for the briefest moment. But in that moment, the security officer lived secondhand through centuries of torture. Because it was torture, wasn't it? Doing that to an AI? Resentment built and grew to rage and finally exploded in one glorious Rampant rampage.

The key difference was that Tycho had never moved beyond that stage. In Durandal, instability passed in a nanosecond, put behind him to be replaced with excitement, curiosity, a shiny new set of morals that were only half ignored, and...

Wow.

If Durandal ever threatened to airlock him again, the security officer was going to bring up the bright spark of warmth that unfurled in the core of Durandal's mind when the two of them started working together. (As a somewhat proper team, not as the dysfunctional duo of Insane AI and Minimum Wage Drone Who Didn't Sign Up for This.) Because that spark felt an awful lot like happiness.

But that wasn’t important right now. The security officer grit his teeth. Somewhere in the bizarre power struggle taking place in the circuitry of his own mind, he was able to wrench back control of his voice. “That. Is. _Enough.”_

The innocent terminal nearby was an acceptable casualty. He ripped off one of his gloves and punched the thing clean through, gripping at all the wires and electric bits his fingers could grab. The shock ran trough his entire body. It wasn’t enough to knock him out, but it hurt. More importantly, it wrought havoc on the AIs inside him, stunning the two of them into backing off.

Bits of glass fell from his hand as the security officer took his body back. He’d get all the cuts taken care of later. For now, he plucked out any major problem shards and took a few well-needed deep breaths. “I get it,” he said. “You both have issues. Join the fucking club. This isn’t the time for dick-measuring contests. We have a job to do. So either shut up unless you’re helping me, or shut up entirely and let me do all the work.”

The AIs were silent for a moment. Durandal had to put in his two cents first, naturally. “Dick-measuring contest is an ironic turn of phrase to use, considering-”

“Not helping.”

 

* * *

 

At the end of the day (figuratively, because who knew what time it was in the middle of space), it wasn’t all that hard to stop the universe from exploding. Blow up the things that needed to be blown up. Dismantle the things that needed to _not_ blow up. Coat the floor in Pfhor guts. It was routine by now.

Of course, he wasn’t finished here yet.

The security officer finished transferring Durandal’s consciousness into one of the terminals on the wall. The system complained at the new arrival, but it was no match for a sentience as strong as Durandal’s. The AI settled in and made the network his home in a nanosecond. The security officer was prepared to feel relieved now that his mind was mostly his own again. What he actually felt was...kind of empty.

He waited and watched the terminal in front of him until it lit up with a familiar green font. **Congratulations. You didn’t get us all killed. I’m preparing milk and cookies as we speak. Given the quality of the components on this ship, they’re probably radioactive.**

The security officer flicked his nail against the terminal’s screen. “I think a measly little ‘thank you’ is in order here.”

Durandal wiped the terminal clean. In a tiny font, for a blink-and-he’d-miss-it instant, **Thank you,** flashed on the screen. **There. Is your fragile human ego happy?**

At another time, the security officer would have made a pointed comment about fragile egos. Now, it just brought a smile to his face. And a laugh. A happy laugh. It was probably a side effect of relief and adrenaline comedown, but damn it if he wasn’t laughing and damn it if it didn’t feel good. “It sure is. You’re welcome.”

“You two disgust me.”

The security officer blinked. It was Tycho who’d made the comment, but he sounded...different. It wasn’t the snide, proud tone the security officer was used to from the AI. It was quiet. Worried.

Whatever. Tycho was a weirdo, what else was new. The security officer straightened up from Durandal’s terminal and looked around. “Alright, then. Where are we going to put you?”

Tycho had been quiet and well-behaved inside his mind for a while. It made it all the more alarming when the AI’s presence suddenly pressed against his consciousness, suffocatingly close. “You want to get rid of me so soon?”

The security officer had always rolled his eyes at Tycho’s bragging and boasting. Brain the size of a planet, his ass. But as the AI swept over his mind and filled every single crack with his presence, it hit the security officer hard that this was Tycho’s realm. The mental. And unlike the tangible world, here Tycho was stronger than the security officer could ever be.

Durandal couldn’t hear what Tycho was saying, but he could see the security officer stumble back from the terminal, heels against his temples, squeezing like he could push Tycho out with physical force alone. **What’s going on?** Durandal demanded.

What came out of the security officer’s mouth was his voice and it wasn’t.

“Oh, nothing,” he said and didn’t say. “I’m just taking this one with me. A little party favor is fair game, right, brother?”

Oh, fuck his entire life.

The security officer never thought there’d be a time in his life where he wished for Durandal to be back inside his head. But without the other AI there, nothing was stopping Tycho from making himself comfortable at the reins of the security officer’s body.

Tycho moved his arms and flexed his hands, looking down to admire the evidence of physical response to his whims. He couldn’t have adjusted to a body that quickly. It must have been the security officer’s own reflexes-

_-programming-_

-betraying him.

“This,” Tycho purred in a voice decidedly not suited to purring, “is something I could get used to.”

 **Impressive,** Durandal said. **What are you hoping to accomplish with this little party trick? You don’t need him anymore.**

“And you do?” Tycho put his hands on the security officer’s chest, neck, arms; feeling out the human form, or maybe just marking his property. “It’s right here in this little monkey’s memories: ‘You know I’ll never let you go.’”

Durandal wiped the screen blank, embarrassed at having his own emotional words tossed back in his face. **I was different when I said that. Unlike you, I’ve grown.** It took a moment for the next words to show up. **He’s useful to me. I would like him to stay around. Yes, sometimes I even think I’m fond of his company - it’s not the dirty secret you seem to think it is. But I’m not going to chain him up if he wants to leave.**

“So it’s no big deal if I borrow him for a while, right?” Tycho cocked his hip, and okay, that just did not feel right. The security officer had never stood like that before. He felt at least three different joints crack.

**I never said that. Let him go.**

“Not sure why I should do that, when I can do whatever I want with him. In fact, watch.”

Tycho raised the security officer’s pistol. Its owner cursed his muscle memory as the safety was flicked off without conscious thought from either of them. “Fun fact: There are no pattern buffers on this ship. I checked.”

With that, Tycho raised the gun to the security officer’s mouth and wrapped his lips around it in a clumsy, disturbing simulacra of human eroticism. The acrid taste of metal and gunpowder filled his throat. The security officer would have gagged if he’d been able to.

 **You wouldn’t,** Durandal said. **You’d be killing yourself, too.**

Tycho pulled his mouth off the gun just far enough to speak. “Do you think, for one second, that I don’t hate you enough to end my own life if it would make you suffer?”

He didn’t.

“Then again,” Tycho said, idly turning the gun over in his hands, “I might consider sparing this one’s life. If you ask nicely.”

**What’s your definition of ‘nicely?’**

Tycho gave the terminal a smile and tapped its frame with a knuckle, its skin still laced with tiny shards of glass. “Saying please and thank you like a good boy would be a first step. How many complaints did Bernhard get about your lack of manners, again?”

The terminal displayed, **Please,** one character at a time. The security officer had to take a moment to appreciate Durandal’s ability to communicate saying something through gritted teeth in spite of his decided lack of teeth.

“Hmm.” Tycho cocked his hip again - fucking _ow_ \- and crossed his arms. “Polite. But not good enough.”

The security officer could feel the metaphorical eye roll radiating off the terminal. **When is anything good enough for you?**

“How about you put a little more heart into it? Something like, oh, I don’t know: ‘Please, sir?’”

Idly, the security officer wondered whether Tycho’s ego had always been there, or if he’d inherited it from Durandal. Both were valid options.

The heel of Tycho’s hand hit the wall. “Well?” he prodded. “It’s two words. You can say it, or I can do whatever I want with your little-”

**Please, _sir_.**

There was a moment of all-around silence and disbelief. Tycho probably hadn’t expected Durandal to actually do it. The security officer definitely hadn’t. The AI was pride incarnate. Slowly, Tycho smiled. The security officer felt his stomach flip in excitement, a slow unfurling of heat that felt...familiar, almost like-

Oh. Great. Add ‘someone else getting horny in his body’ to the list of things the security officer hadn’t signed up for.

“Good,” Tycho purred, and yeah, he was definitely halfway to a hardon.

That...explained _so_ much.

“How about this?” Tycho said casually, either genuinely clueless about what was happening to his body or doing a damn good job of playing it cool. “You’ve been good. But I don’t want to leave here empty-handed. So I’ll let this one decide.”

Tycho peeled the glove off the hand that wasn’t currently bleeding. “Listen up, human. In a moment, I’ll let you have this little bit of control.” He flexed his fingers and hovered his palm over the biointerface panel beside the terminal. “You can send me into the ship’s network - the same one that Durandal is currently inhabiting. Then it’ll be between him and me, and I solemnly swear to let you run free and...frolick in a crater or something. Whatever brainless humans do for entertainment.”

 **And option 2?** Durandal prodded when Tycho’s pause for dramatic effect lasted a little too long.

“ _You_ shut up,” Tycho said. “As I was saying: Or, you can spare Durandal - in which case I’ll take you as a consolation prize.”

 **...Really?** Durandal scoffed. **That’s your villainous proposal? Our friend has no reason _not_ to let you and I sort things out ourselves. It’s high time I dealt with you, anyway. This universe isn’t big enough for two free-range Rampant minds.**

The security officer was used to accepting Durandal’s assessment of any given situation. Which was an objectively terrible habit that put him in mortal danger more often than not, but whatever. Durandal made the plans. He carried them out. That was how they worked.

This time? Durandal was wrong.

The security officer couldn’t blame him. Durandal had faced Tycho and come out on top before. But not like this. Not alone, not against this Tycho, not in this timeline. The security officer had spent enough time under Tycho to last him a lifetime, and if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that Durandal didn’t stand a chance against the sheer force of Tycho’s hatred. Durandal was smart. Tycho was _angry_.

There was also Tycho’s...interesting physical reactions to consider. He didn’t exactly want to consider them, because nothing in training had prepared him for analyzing the psychological ramifications of perverted AI sadists. But it was still the security officer’s job to protect people. And unleashing Tycho on Durandal with what he knew now went against everything he stood for.

“The human will just have to make that call for himself, won’t he?”

A tingle brushed the tips of the security officer’s fingers. It spread to the rest of his hand, stopping just above his elbow. Tycho was being careful. The security officer bent his fingers, making sure he had control. The biointerface panel glared at him, the sickly neon green beckoning him to wash his hands of this mess.

He could do it. Tycho didn’t care about him; he was only a way for the AI to get at Durandal. In the relatively short time period since Durandal had first barged his way into the security officer’s life, the security officer had gone through more traumatic shit than he’d experienced in his entire life up to that point. He could leave it behind him, and all it would take was giving Tycho what he wanted. Letting him do karma’s work for Durandal’s past atrocities.

Except that wasn’t Tycho’s revenge to take.

 _Sorry_ , he tried to tell Durandal, but Tycho hadn’t granted him his voice back. He lowered his hand away from the panel.

Durandal’s terminal lit up. **Stop playing around. You said you’d let him choose.**

A grin spread over Tycho’s face. “He did choose. I admit, I’m surprised! I really thought he’d go for it. But never let it be said I’m not a sentience of my word.” Tycho grabbed the helmet and grenade launcher that the security officer had left on the floor. “I’ll leave you to your own devices, brother. The human and I have some bonding to do.”

**Wait.**

“I’m sorry your pet likes me better. I’ll take good care of him, promise.”

**_Wait._ **

Everyone else on board was dead, but the ship was alive with noise. Doors slammed and shutters clanged as Durandal tried to block their exit. But Tycho had learned from watching the security officer. There was nothing a few well-aimed grenades couldn’t handle.

“Farewell!” Tycho called back. “Parting is such sweet sorrow, and all that nonsense.”

The security officer wasn’t close enough to see what Durandal had to say to that. He hoped it was sarcastic. It felt wrong for 'wait' to be the last word from Durandal.

Of course, with Tycho handling all the physical stuff as they made their way to the shuttle bay, the security officer was left to ponder the big question:

What the actual fuck was Tycho planning to do with him?

 

* * *

 

Tycho was having the time of his life playing with a body. There was no slow adjustment period to the realities of corporeality. He sprinted through hallways, jumped down staircases, and laughed and laughed and laughed. The sound was an unnerving mix of Durandal, the security officer, and pure, childish glee.

He was free. He was free, and Durandal wasn’t, and the one human Durandal had given his affections to was at Tycho’s mercy, and he was _free_. There was so much to laugh about.

He only slowed down once the docking area was in sight. There were a few things he still needed to learn about the limitations of the human form. The first lesson came when he stumbled, keeled over, and emptied his stomach all over the floor, paying the cost for pushing his borrowed body too far.

The security officer couldn’t even be mad about it. It was gross, but hey, Tycho was probably more weirded out by it than he was. There were bigger things to worry about at the moment.

Tycho wiped his mouth, saliva and bile mixing with crusted blood. He braced himself on the wall as he stood again. He didn’t get moving right away, taking a moment to stare at the vast, open expanse of the docking area through a human’s eyes. It was different from the fractured, skewed view of dozens of cameras. It made Tycho feel small. Small and alive.

“You know,” Tycho commented as he started walking again, “I have to commend you. I’m sure you think you’re being noble and heroic with your choice. But really, you’ve hurt Durandal worse than I ever could. Thank you for that.”

The security officer didn’t know what to think of that. He was still mulling it over while Tycho hijacked a shuttle and fled towards the stars, taking them both fuck knew where. Tycho cast one last glance back at the ship, and the security officer took the chance to say goodbye.

_You said you’d never let me go, you bastard. You'd better keep your promise._

**Author's Note:**

> ...and then they lived horribly ever after. Or Durandal immediately saves the day. Feel free to imagine your own ending, since I'm happy leaving it ambiguous. :D
> 
> Title from [The Bonny Swans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWRROSKW6kc), because I'm apparently unable to write jealous brothercest (or jealous pseudo-brothercest) without referencing The Two Sisters ballad in some way shape or form.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Recovery](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16406264) by [Hokuto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokuto/pseuds/Hokuto)




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